


A Comet Overhead

by mountain_born



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, History
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 11:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/638643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountain_born/pseuds/mountain_born
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In order to forge a weapon capable of killing Evil, three things must be in place.  The eve of battle.  The skilled hand of a master craftsman.  And a comet overhead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Comet Overhead

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: I have, from the very beginning, been fascinated by John Winchester's story of the making of the Colt. When Ruby's knife was introduced, it led me to wonder, how were these weapons made? What makes them special?
> 
> Major thanks goes out to like_a_raven for her, as always, incomparable beta-ing skills. Any remaining errors, factual or grammatical, are my own.
> 
> Originally posted at ff.net under the username Onadare.

**A Comet Overhead**

No one knows who first fashioned a weapon capable of killing any Evil that walked or flew or crawled upon the Earth, or even how anyone ever conceived that such a weapon could be made. Not even the barest tatters or whispers—of the weapon or the tale—survive.

But the details are unimportant. All that matters is that such a thing _can_ be made, though only rarely. And only when three things come together.  


The eve of battle. The skilled hand of a master craftsman. And a comet overhead.

*****

**66 AD—The Spear**

The star appeared in winter that year. Open rebellion of the Zealots, led by Eleazer, was still months away, but no one within the walls of Jerusalem could deny that ill-will among the Jews against the Roman invaders was fast boiling toward bloodshed.

The old centurion, who had not worked metal in years, heeded the signs and set his fading eyes and gnarled fingers to crafting a spear point. He claimed this work to be the most important of his long life.

In later years, his fellows would recall, mystified, that he had given it away to a stranger newly arrived in the city. A man they knew only as Avram.

And that the stranger vanished into the Judean wilderness as mysteriously as he had arrived.

*****

**1066 AD—The Sword**

They say that Harold, King of England, quaked at the sight of the omen that appeared in the sky at Eastertide in the year 1066, certain that it foretold his doom, even as William the Bastard mustered his forces across the Channel.

On that night, while others marveled or trembled at the sight of the comet-star, the King's own smith set to work to forge a sword. But not for his Lord. The blade and the man who wielded it would never see the battlefield at Hastings.

But it is said that he used the sword for the Glory and Might of God until the day he fell before the tide of Satan and his legions.

*****

**1456 AD—The Bow**

Many men passed through the town that spring, on their way to Belgrade in the East, where the armies of the Ottoman Empire were threatening to take the city.

The man arrived alone on the same night as the comet. Rather than seeking out an inn or a tavern, he asked to be directed to the best boywer and fletcher in the town. From him, he ordered a bow and arrows, to be made according to special instructions, and from wood that he carried with him, wrapped carefully in cloth. He claimed that it was blessed and holy.

The weapons maker shook his head and told him that no bow, however blessed, would stand up to Ottoman cannon fire. But the man insisted.

At week's end he departed, with a bow and thirteen arrows.

Spurring his horse toward the West.

*****

**1682 AD—The Knife**

No one on the frontier, in the fringe of civilization at the far edge of the colonies, ever rested entirely easy. Law and order were hard to keep, and encounters could turn deadly in the blink of an eye. And then there was the local Indian population to keep an eye on.

All the same, things were peaceful that summer until the comet appeared in the sky. That was when Joseph McLean murdered the daughter of an Iroquois chief, sparking an uprising that killed over a quarter of his neighbors. People assumed he'd lost his mind, especially when he locked himself in his forge to fashion a knife while others fortified their homes.

Some hunters claim that when McLean forced the circumstances of the knife's creation, he twisted and tainted his work as well. That the blade was cursed from its birth. And that was the reason it came to be borne by a demon.

*****

**1835 AD—The Colt**

_Back in 1835, when Halley's Comet was overhead, the same night those men died at the Alamo, they say Samuel Colt made a gun. A special gun. He made it for a hunter—a man like us, only on horseback._

_The story goes he made thirteen bullets. This hunter used the gun a half dozen times before he disappeared, the gun along with him._

_They say this gun can kill anything._


End file.
